Mecha Corps

by Brett Patton

  Matt batted the super-Hellions away as fast as they came. Or was it Major Soto? He didn’t know where he ended and Soto began. Or was it Michelle who thought, Nice, nice, very nice, as they plucked the Hellions off their Merged Demon?

  ANTIMATTER WEAPONS LOCKED flashed a warning in Matt/ Michelle/Soto’s POV.

  Blinding light lanced at them from Rayder’s Displacement Drive ship. Their Mecha hands came up instantly, triggering a Fusion Handshake like a shield. The antimatter annihilation passed over them without effect.

  In the wake of the explosion, Rayder’s battleships came at them, a thousand dark gray, purposeful ships bristling with weapons and humming with death. There were hulking Union Rhinos, graceful Taikong Shui Niu and swift Aliancia Caballos. It was a force that could tear an independent Displacement Drive ship apart in seconds, a force to occupy a planet. The Merged Demon, even in its glory, was a glowing pinprick against the coming storm.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto crossed their Mecha’s arms in front of themselves. The arms transformed and stretched hundreds of meters in length. Fusion ports opened on their sides, forming a glowing orange X like a shield.

  This is the X weapon, Matt suddenly knew. They hadn’t even had to think about activating it. It had just happened.

  “Stop now, and you’ll live,” Matt/Michelle/Soto said, transmitting on all frequencies. “Continue and die.”

  The Corsair battleships didn’t slow.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto reached out. Their elongated arms stretched even farther to slice into the cloud of oncoming battleships. Their arms became only molecules thick, barely containing the radiant orange death within. Fusion ports spat fire into the cloud in all directions.

  Where their arms passed, battleships and fighters flashed to vapor and destroyers wilted. Entire sides of ships disappeared, spilling Corsairs into empty space. Blackened hunks of steel and glass tumbled out of the sky, and the enemy’s remains pattered the skin of the Merged Demon like hail.

  When the clouds of destruction parted, a handful of Corsair battleships turned tail and jetted away. Their drives were like white stars of victory.

  Matt’s heart hammered in time with Michelle’s and Soto’s. A breathtaking surge of pure exhilaration passed through the trio. They’d done it! They’d turned the Corsairs back! Now all they had to do was—

  HEAVY-MATTER WEAPON LOCKED, their screens screamed.

  Their world rang like a bell. Matt/Michelle/Soto rocked back, screaming. When they came to and stopped their spin, the overlays showed what had happened: they’d just been hit by a series of heavy-matter weapons from Rayder’s Displacement Drive ships.

  Pushing their thrusters past redline, they shot at the Displacement Drive ship. Their arms reached out, clearing the few remaining fighters and battleships out of their way. They hit the Displacement Drive ship like a hammer and it rang like a bell. The Merged Demon grappled with the giant ship, like Atlas lifting his globe. Matt/Michelle/Soto reached in through an open dock, pushing aside corridors, drilling through rock, probing deep to the core of the ship, where the Displacement Drive’s fusion core beat like a heart.

  They squeezed. Flame erupted from every port on the Displacement Drive ship. Fissures opened in its surface. A deep rumbling built toward a crescendo.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto leapt off the Displacement Drive ship, just ahead of the expanding explosion. House-sized chunks of rock and twisted steel ricocheted off the Merged Demon’s hide, but the pain was distant, unimportant. Matt/ Michelle/Soto turned to watch the expanding ball of gas, laughing at the insane power of the Merged Demon. They’d just crushed a Displacement Drive ship like a kid would crumple a piece of paper.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto shared a moment of pure exhilaration. This was what we’ve been striving for. An irresistible force, one that no Corsair could stand against.

  HEAVY-MATTER WEAPONS LOCKED, their screen said. A vector traced a line to two, three, more Displacement Drive ships.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto turned to face the ships just as they fired. The Merged Demon instantly triggered a Fusion Handshake as it shot toward the two ships. On their armored sides, docks slid closed and weapons retracted behind protective shutters.

  Closing up? That meant the Displacement Drive ships were getting ready to Displace. Sometime in the next few minutes, Rayder’s forces would simply disappear. And if the ships got away, they’d lost. Rayder would simply regroup again and hit the Union harder.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto slammed a hand into an armored dock. The dock doors exploded inward, exhaling a single white puff of atmosphere. The Merged Demon’s hand flowed into the ship. This time, they didn’t immediately crush the enemy. Matt guided them toward the bridge, where Rayder’s information systems were located.

  Merge, Matt thought, and the Demon’s hand became one with the Displacement Drive ship’s systems.

  Data flowed into them. Rayder’s orders. Details of what he’d done to the Hellions to unbuffer their neural interfaces and release all the limitations on their operation. The mind control that held Kyle and the other pilots in its iron grip. Relief poured off Michelle, but at the same time, there was an undercurrent of doubt. What has happened between us? she wondered. What has Rayder changed in Kyle?

  But there was more data. So much more. Gigantic chunks of seemingly magic technology. Mature nanotechnology. Precise control of genetics, to the point of building completely synthetic organisms. Communications systems that acted directly on the human brain, with no electronic intermediaries. Matt gasped at the expanse of it all. What had they lost in the HuMax war?

  But there was no time to dwell on that. Milliseconds were ticking away. Soon Rayder’s ships would Displace away, and all would be lost.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto triggered the Displacement Drive ship’s thrusters, driving it into the nearest of Rayder’s giant battleships. The Merged Demon reached through a closing port into the antimatter heart of the battleship.

  This time, they didn’t crush it. They grabbed the antimatter core of the Displacement Drive ship and took it into themselves. Absorbing its power. Absorbing the very metal of the Displacement Drive ship. The ship shriveled like a deflating balloon. The Merged Demon surged in size and power. It glowed, blindingly luminescent orange against the blackness of space.

  ANTIMATTER WEAPONS LOCKED showed on their screens.

  HEAVY-MATTER WEAPONS LOCKED followed close behind.

  A half-dozen tags showed weapons tracking them from the handful of open ports on Rayder’s Displacement Drive battleships. Rayder would sacrifice those weapons as they Displaced, for one last shot at the Merged Demon.

  Which meant they only had seconds left.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto gathered the antimatter power inside the Demon, concentrating it down to a point of pure radiance.

  Now, they thought.

  Arms of pure light shot out of the Merged Demon and plunged into Rayder’s nearby Displacement Drive ships. From there, they gathered brilliance and lanced quickly from ship to ship. Glowing arms of power embraced eleven of the most powerful battleships in the universe. Data coursed into the Merged Demon; they had total control. Rayder’s forces weren’t going anywhere.

  Except one ship: the Atlas. Far away. So far. Matt/Michelle /Soto gathered their strength and flung their X weapon at the Atlas. But even with the power of eleven antimatter drives in their control, they couldn’t reach it.

  Shit! Matt ground his teeth. He imagined Rayder’s laughter echoing in the cockpit.

  It’s all right, Michelle told him. We have his fleet.

  Yes. Time to end it, Soto thought.

  But they didn’t understand! They couldn’t just let Rayder go! He’d chase Rayder to the end of the universe—

  You will, Michelle told him.

  “That’s next,” Soto said out loud.

  Rayder’s fleet of Displacement Drive ships was slipping out of their grasp. Their teams of programmers were systematically building walls around their most important information nodes. If they didn’t d
o something soon, they’d gain control of their Displacement Drives and disappear.

  “Surrender now!” Matt/Michelle/Soto said. The words echoed through every hall of the Displacement Drive armada, on every transmission, through every speaker.

  But in all the ships, both human and HuMax eyes looked up and sneered as they redoubled their efforts to throw off the Demon’s control.

  HuMax eyes? Matt started. There were more HuMax than Rayder? Yes. Dozens. Hundreds. The HuMax were still alive.

  They closed all of their hands at once.

  Around them, eleven violent orange flowers blossomed in space. Fragments of asteroid and sheets of steel armor cascaded through space. Bits of the Displacement Drive ships pattered off them like rain. The Merged Demon shrank back to its original form.

  Rayder’s fleet was destroyed! And the Merged Demon was the only force that could have done it. Matt/Michelle/ Soto radiated contented fulfillment.

  Far off, only a single Displacement Drive ship remained. The Atlas. Rayder’s ship.

  “Let’s get him,” Matt grated.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto thrust at Rayder’s ship, using all their power. This was it. This was the end. Matt screamed soundlessly in his mask, electrified with glee.

  And yet . . . why isn’t Rayder firing? Matt wondered. But it was a tiny thought, pushed far back in the dark recesses of his mind. It didn’t matter. Maybe Rayder thought he could Displace away. Maybe he just wanted to give them pause by holding back. Just as he’d held back with the power of life and death a decade and a half ago.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto reached out as they rocketed toward Rayder’s flagship. Their arms transformed into gleaming red spikes. Matt grinned, imagining Rayder’s flagship shattering into a million pieces.

  In a flash, they were there. The Merged Demon’s spikes drove into the ship’s armor, punching deep within. For a moment, Matt/Michelle/Soto felt everything within the flagship. The digital heart of Rayder’s computers. The data he’d hidden from the rest of the Corsairs: huge reams of information gleaned from the ruins of the HuMax city, the complete template of the HuMax genome, the grand search that had driven the Expansion, even the Union’s involvement in—

  Look out! Michelle screamed, sharp and urgent. Four super-Hellions rocketed around from in back of the Displacement Drive ship, their Zap Guns at ready. Intense beams flared from their barrels, blotting out all vision.

  Matt, Michelle, and Soto screamed, the sound reverberating as the Merged Demon’s biometallic skin took intense fire. Red warning tags flared all over Matt’s POV, and the dreaded REGENERATING text showed. But this time, the numbers flashed up: 45, 55, 65 SECONDS TO COMPLETION.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto thrust one arm desperately deep into the ship, reaching for the antimatter core. That was the only way they’d fight off the Hellion siege.

  But instead of the comforting warmth of the ship’s antimatter core, they found something else. A new control, hastily added to the generator. A control that could turn the ship into an antimatter bomb.

  Suddenly, Matt saw the whole picture. Rayder wasn’t a showoff. He was a pragmatist. Try to capture the Demon with his remaining Hellions, but if that didn’t work—

  —destroy the Demon at all costs.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto pulled back from the flagship in a flash, lighting thrusters and rocketing away from the ship.

  Behind them, annihilation erupted from Rayder’s flagship, enveloping Matt/Michelle/Soto in a wave of actinic fury.

  The skin of the Merged Demon peeled back and burned away, revealing shining metallic muscles. The muscles glowed red with heat and began to melt. The visor went black before flickering back to a black-and-white, low-resolution display.

  The pain was like being thrown naked into hot oil. Every nerve exploded with agony. It was so far beyond anything Matt had ever felt, he didn’t even hear his own ear-piercing wails.

  When it passed, the Demon hung, uncontrolled for long moments, slowly tumbling away from Rayder’s flagship.

  MOVE, Major Soto thought through the pain.

  Matt and Michelle jerked back to attention. Only two small segments of their visual sensors still functioned. The rest flickered or were blank.

  But it was enough to see the five Hellions. Four of them were scorched and twisting. One was pristine, untouched by the blast.

  Rayder, Matt thought.

  The single Hellion flashed at them, lightning quick, two Zap Guns held in both hands. The barrels glowed deadly blue as the Zap Guns prepared to fire.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto’s world shattered into a billion pieces. It was beyond pain. The Merged Demon’s talons crisped and burned away like matches. Biometallic muscle glowed yellow-white and ran like water. The last of their skin seared away. Red warning tags swarmed in their screen, over a display where only a few thousand pixels flickered. REGENERATING indices filled half the screen. They counted down from 9,500 seconds.

  Run, Matt thought.

  Thrusters sputtering, the Merged Demon turned away from the Hellion. It jagged to one side to avoid a Zap Gun burst, but a perfectly timed shot from the other gun sent the Merged Demon tumbling.

  Matt/Michelle/Soto fired their remaining thrusters, trying for an erratic and unpredictable path. Rayder had sacrificed the entire Atlas to get a shot at them. Now he was out for his own retribution.

  “Down,” Matt croaked, and thrust the Demon toward the dead planet.

  Matt could almost hear Rayder’s harsh laughter. Anger, white-hot and wicked fast, surged in his mind. Matt scrabbled for his own Zap Gun, but the door wasn’t just jammed; it didn’t exist anymore.

  “Too much damage for normal transformation,” Soto said, reading Matt’s mind. “We can’t even unMerge.”

  Matt groaned in frustration. If he could only get a shot!

  Sudden insight bloomed. There was a way he could shoot the Zap Gun.

  “You’re crazy,” Michelle said.

  No, I’m not, Matt thought. If he fired the Zap Gun in place—in its hip holster—the beam would cleave right through the biometal. All he had to do was to get his leg lined up with Rayder—

  “You’ll blow our leg off!” Soto said.

  Do you have another option? Matt thought, disabling interlocks and rerouting controls for the Zap Gun.

  No, Soto admitted.

  Let’s hope we can regenerate, Michelle thought.

  Burn that bridge later, Matt thought. The Merged Demon’s leg exploded in a cascade of white-hot biometal. The brilliant Zap Gun beam speared inky-red space.

  It intersected with the Hellion. Its arm and shoulder went red-hot and flashed to vapor. The Hellion thrashed, trying to get away. Half its visor disappeared.

  Matt grinned so hard, it hurt. He could almost hear Rayder’s screams.

  The Hellion’s thrusters went ultraviolet-overload and the dark-quicksilver Mecha leapt away in an uncontrolled spin. But it wasn’t dead. The pilot’s chamber was still intact.

  They tried to get another shot, but they’d hit atmosphere ; buffeting made targeting with the Zap Gun impossible.

  The Hellion fell out of their view, as the biometal heated in the atmospheric plunge.

  “Now what?” Soto asked.

  “We figure out how to land,” Matt said, watching the HuMax city swell quickly below them. “And quick.”

  19

  HUNT

  The Merged Demon lay scattered down the broad avenue of the twisted HuMax city. The white dwarf sun, low on the horizon, slashed alternating gray highlights and pitch-black shadow on the Demon’s carbon-scarred red metal.

  The suspension gel had vaporized from the pilot’s chamber, but their view masks still worked. Matt held his in one hand and watched the bad news mount:

  MAJOR SYSTEMS COMPROMISED: MOBILITY, STABILITY, SENSORS, WEAPONS, PILOT SUPPORT.

  BIOMETAL MASS LOSS: 26%

  ENERGY SYSTEMS IMPACTED: OUTPUT 33% NOMINAL

  “It could be worse,” Soto said.

  Matt nodded, but said noth
ing. He took off his view mask to look around. Through a fissure in the pilot’s chamber, the foul air of the HuMax world seeped, making him cough.

  “Yeah, we could be dead,” Michelle added.

  “But we’re not,” Matt said. And neither was Rayder. Rayder was down here in the city, as shattered as they were. Maybe worse.

  Maybe dead, Matt thought.

  But probably not, whispered a little voice. He’s doing the same thing as you. Regenerating. Or else he’d be raining fire on you right now.

  A loud chime came from within the Merged Demon, and the biometallic muscles surrounding the pilot’s chamber twitched. Matt’s face screen blinked bright red. He held it up to look inside.

  RADICAL REGENERATION NECESSARY PILOTS EXIT MECHA

  The pilot’s chamber opened with a loud groan. One petal of the iris hung up, halfway open, on the deformed entrance. Hot air, stinking of sulfur, poured in.

  “Fucking hell!” Michelle barked, coughing.

  “Pull up your hood,” Soto said, grabbing at the back of his utility suit.

  “No air!” Michelle coughed.

  Soto fastened his hood in place and blew out a big breath. “It’ll draw air from outside and purify it. Somewhat.”

  Matt pulled up his hood, fastened it, and took a deep breath. The thin, hot air still stank and hurt his throat, but it was better, more breathable with the suit.

  “Pilots exit cockpit,” a voice sounded through the Mecha. “Radical regeneration beginning.”

  Soto dropped to the ground and searched frantically on the floor of the pilot’s chamber, as the Mecha began to convulse.

  “What are you doing?” Matt yelled.

  “Survival kit!” Soto yelled back. “Pistols!”

  Aha. Matt dropped to his knees and helped search. In a small compartment was a single survival kit, including a mini needle-gun pistol.

  “Pilots exit cockpit immediately,” the voice boomed, and the Merged Demon convulsed.